Murder at SCG!

India is in Australia playing a 4 match test series currently. Before the series began, we were favourites to win it. Media channels vied with each other on hype and predictions. Even without the media hoopla, the average Indian fan would have given Team India a great chance of victory! What with an enviable batting line up, an admirable captain and Australia’s own woes of batting form and having lost a home series to New Zealand, we were sure to put up a great show! Or so thought the Indian cricket fans!

The practice matches showed great promise and we couldn’t wait for the series to get started. Well, start it did on Boxing Day! The Melbourne Test came and went. We couldn’t bat big in either innings. But our bowling had been decent and we dismissed the defeat as India’s bad luck with Melbourne.

Melbourne was always bad; we said and waited patiently for the New Year to start. Another year, another match! SCG was always a belter of a track! And we were a batting side. Well, essentially atleast. But we forgot that it was the same players with the same attitude. And thus began the Sydney Test.

The very best thing you could say about the match was that it was short; the Indian spectators had to endure only less than four days of agony. It is hard to say what the worst thing was: I think it was a close‐run contest between the bowler’s consecutive centuries with Clarke, Ponting and Hussey child abusing the bowlers and piling on the runs, Virat Kohli getting excited on the field and showing his middle finger to the crowd, and all batsmen failing to score great runs on a placid batting track and panicking when the Aussie bowlers charged at them with the red cherry. The miracle was that India only lost by an innings and 68 runs: Ashwin and Zaheer Khan managed to keep the crowd engaged for a while and score a 100 runs together so that the losing margin was a little lesser.

It is time to sing the hosannas! But I doubt if even Churchill’s world war winning speech will be enough to inspire us now. Hosanna!